September 19, 2014Movie Review A Walk Among the Tombstones by Mark Roget Liam Neeson is a fine actor, but I question whether it’s worthwhile to pay money to watch him in something as grisly, gory, and gruesome as A Walk Among the Tombstones. If he does another picture as dark, depressing, and hateful as this, I think many of his fans are going to give up on him. Adapted from Lawrence Block’s novel, of the same name, by Scott Frank (who also directs), the plot follows Matt Scudder (Neeson), an ex-policeman who quit the force when he shot an innocent bystander and became an alcoholic. Now, he’s a private investigator, without a license, who does favors for those who give him gifts. He takes on a new case when drug dealer Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens who played Matthew in Downtown Abbey and who is going to a lot of trouble to hide his good looks by dying his hair and becoming skeletal for the role) offers him lots of money to find the men who killed his wife. The film is filled with nauseating, gut-wrenching cruelty and violence for the fun of it; so much so that it’s superfluous to even notice things like cinematography, characterization, and setting—all of which seem unimportant in the face of so much depravity. It was all I could do stay in my seat until the final credits. That said, the movie is not only revolting in its sadism, but it’s also senseless. The two serial killers (David Harbour and Adam David Thompson) kidnap women for no reason. They ask for huge ransoms, but even when paid they still torture and chop their victims into little pieces, which they toss into car trunks; or they throw minced pieces of the victim into garbage bags that they scatter in a cemetery lake; or they record their female victims agonizing screams and send the recording to the husband. You’d think that with that kind of sadistic savagery, you’d get an inkling of the killers’ motivation. But you don’t. They’re just nuts. No explanation as to why they’re on a bloody rampage; or how they became looney; or the why of their choice of victims. The two serial killer creeps have piled up millions in cash extorted from kidnappings, but they live as though they’re barely above the poverty line. They live together but we don’t know what kind of relationship they have. How did they meet? Are they just buddies because they’re both crazy? Do they have a romantic connection? What? And then it all ends up with a hollow finale in which there’s even more sickening blood-curdling violence as the walls and floor of a house are awash in blood—so much so that Scudder slips on pools of it. This is the most worthless film of the year. Making this kind of movie should give Neeson pause. One of these days, he’s going to wake up to find that he has destroyed his career.